Chapter 8

The car flew on, increasing a speed that had been unlawful almost from the start. He wondered what the police were about. He might write a sharp letter to the newspapers, signed, "Indignant Pedestrian," only it would be too late. He was being volleyed at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour into the presence of a man who had that morning sworn at his mother. He wished he could, say for one day, have Breede back there on the banks of the Nile--set him to work building a pyramid, or weeding the lotus patch, foot or _no_ foot! He'd show him!

He switched this resentment to the young female at his side. He wanted her to quit looking at him that way. It made him nervous. But a muffled glance or two at her disarmed this feeling. She was all right to look at, he thought, had pretty hands and "all that"--she had stripped off her gloves when they reached the open country--and she didn't talk, which was what he most feared in her sex. He recalled that she had said hardly a word since the start. He might have supposed himself forgotten had it not been for that look of veiled determination which he encountered as often as he dared.

A young dog dashed from a gateway ahead of them and threatened the car furiously. They both applied imaginary brakes to the car with feet and hands and taut nerves. The puppy escaping death by an inch, trotted back to his saved home with an air that comes from duty well performed. They looked from the dog to each other.

"I'd make them against the law," said Bean.

"How could you? The idea!"

"I mean motors, not dogs."

"Oh! Of course!"

They had been brought a little together.

"You go in for dogs?" asked the flapper.

He hesitated. "Going in" for dogs seemed to mean more. "I've got only one just now," he confessed.

Wooded hills flew by them, the white road flickered forward to their wheels.

"You interested in the movement?" demanded the flapper again.

"Yes," he said.

"Granny will be delighted to know that. So many young men aren't."

"What make is it?" he inquired, preparing to look enlightened when told the name of the vehicle in which they rode.

"Oh, I mean the Movement--_the_ movement!"

"Oh, yes," he faltered. "Greatly interested!" He remembered the badge on her jacket, and Bulger's warning about Grandma, the Demon.

"Granny and I marched in the parade this year, clear down to Washington Square. If she wasn't so old we'd both run over to London and get arrested in the Strand for breaking windows."

Bean shuddered.

"We're making our flag now for the next parade--big blue cloth with a gold star for every state that has raised woman from her degradation by giving her a vote."

He shuddered again. Although of legal years for the franchise, he had never voted. If you tried to vote some ward-heeler would challenge you and you'd like as not be hauled off to the lock-up. And what was the good of it! The politicians got what they wanted. But this he kept to himself.

"Granny'll put a badge on you," promised the flapper. "We have to take advantage of every little means."

He was still puzzling over this when they turned through a gateway, imposing with its tangle of wrought iron and gilt, and at a decorously reduced speed crinkled up a wide drive to the vast pile of gray stone that housed the un-filial Breede.

A taller and, Bean thought, a prettier girl than the flapper stepped aside for them, looking at Bean as they passed. One could read her look as one could not read the flapper's. It was outrageously languishing.

"Flirts with every one, makes no difference _who_!" explained the flapper with a venomous sniff.

Bean laughed uneasily.

"She's my own dear sister, and I love her, but she's a perfect cat!"

Bean made deprecating sounds with his lips.

"I suppose people have been wondering where I was," confessed the flapper as they descended upon the granite steps. "I forgot to tell them I was going. Better hurry to Pops or he'll be murdering some one."

A man took his bag and preceded him into the big hall.

"Engaged, too!" called the flapper bitterly.

He found Breede imprisoned in a large, light room that looked to the west. Below the windows a green hill fell sheerly away to the bank of a lordly river, and beyond rose other hills that shimmered in the haze. A light breeze fluttered the gayly striped awnings. Breede, at a desk, turned his back upon the fair scene and fumed.

"Take letter G.M. Watkins, Pres'den I 'n' N.C. Rai'way," began Breede as Bean entered the room. "Dear sir repline yours of 23d instan' would say Ouch! damn that foot don't take that regardin' traffic 'greement now'n 'fect that 'casion may rise 'n near future to 'mend same in 'cordance with stip'lations inform'ly made at conf'rence held las' Janwary will not'fy you 'n due time 'f change is made yours very truly have some lunch brought here 'n a minute may haf' t' stay three four days t'll this Whoo! damn foot gets well take letter H.J. Hobbs secon' 'sistant vice Pres'den' D. 'n' L.S. Rai'way New York, New York, dear Hobbs mark it pers'nal repline yours even date stock purchases goin' forward as rapidly's thought wise under circumstances it is held mos'ly 'n small lots an' too active a market might give rise t' silly notions about it--"

The day's work was on, familiar enough, with the exception of Breede's interjections; he spoke words many times that were not to be "taken down." And yet Bean forebore to record his wonted criticisms of his employer's dress. There was ground for them. Breede had never looked less the advanced dresser. But Bean's mind was busy with that older sister, she of the marvellously drooping eyes. He had recognized her at once as the ideal person with whom to be wrecked on a desert island. A flirt, and engaged, too, was she? No matter. He wrecked himself with her, and they lived on mussels and edible roots and berries, and some canned stuff from the ship, and he built a hut of "native thatch," and found a deposit of rubies, gathering bushels of them, and he became her affianced the very day the smoke of the rescuing steamer blackened the horizon. And throughout an idyllic union they always thought rather regretfully of that island; they had had such a beautiful time there. And his oldest son, who was left-handed, pitched a ball that was the despair of every batter in both leagues!

Such had been the devastation of that one drooping glance. This vision, enjoyed while he ate of the luncheon brought to him, might have been prolonged. He hadn't remembered a quarter of the delightful contingencies that arise when the right man and woman are wrecked on an island, but he looked up from his plate to find Breede regarding him and his abundant food with a look of such stony malignance that he could eat no more--Breede with his glass of diluted milk and one intensely hygienic cracker!

But during pauses in the afternoon's work the island vision became blurred by the singular energies of the flapper. What did she mean by looking at him that way? There was something ominous about it. He had to admit that in some occult way she benumbed his will power. He did not believe he would dare be wrecked on a desert island with the other one, if the flapper knew about it.

At last there was surcease of Breede.

"Have 'em ready in the morning," he directed, referring to the letters he had dictated. "G'wout 'n' 'muse yourself when you get time," he added hospitably. "Now I got to hobble to my room. If you see any women outside, tell 'em g'wan downstairs if they don't want to hear me."

He stood balanced on one foot, a stout cane in either hand. Bean opened the door, but the hall was vacant. Breede grunted and began his progress. It was, perhaps, not more than reasonably vocal considering his provocation.

Bean uncovered a typewriter and sat to it, his note-book before him. For a moment he reverted to the island vision. They could be attacked by savages from another island, and he would fight them off with the rifles he had salvaged from the ship. _She_ would reload the weapons for him, and bind up his head when he was wounded. He fought the last half of the desperate battle with a stained bandage over his brow.

There was a sharp rap at the door and it opened before he could call. The flapper entered.

"Don't let me disturb you," she said, and walked to the window, as if she found the place only scenically interesting.

Bean murmured politely and began upon his letters. The flapper was relentless. She sat in her father's chair and fastened the old look of implacable kindness upon him. He beat the keys of the machine. The flapper was disturbing him atrociously.

A few moments later another rap sounded on the door, and again it opened before he could call. A shrewd-looking, rather trim old lady with carefully coiffed hair stood in the doorway.

"Don't let me disturb you," she said, and again Bean murmured.

"Mr. Bean, my grandmother," said the flapper.

"Keep right on with your work, young man," said the old lady in commanding tones, when Bean had acknowledged the presentation. "I like to watch it."

She sat in another chair, very straight in her lavender dress, and joined with the flapper in her survey of the wage-slave. This was undoubtedly Grandma, the Demon.

Bean continued his work, thinking as best he could above the words of Breede, that she must be a pretty raw old party, going around, voting, smashing windows, leading her innocent young grandchild into the same reckless life. Nice thing, that! He was not surprised when he heard a match lighted a moment later, and knew that Grandma was smoking a cigarette. Expect anything of _that_ sort!

He had wished they would go before he finished the last letter, but they sat on, and Grandma filled the room with smoke.

"Now he's through!" proclaimed the flapper.

"How old are you?" asked Grandma, as Bean arose nervously from the machine.

He tried jauntily to make it appear that he must "count up."

"Let me see. I'm--twenty-three last Tuesday."

The old lady nodded approvingly, as if this were something to his credit.

"Got any vicious habits?"

Bean weakly began an answer intended to be facetious, and yet leave much to be inferred regarding his habits. But the Demon would have none of this.

"Smoke?"

"No!"

"Drink?"

"No!" He desperately wondered if she would know where to stop.

"How's your health? Ever been sick much?"

"I can't remember. I had lumbago when I was seven."

"Humph! Gamble, play cards, bet on races, go around raising cain with a lot of young devils at night?"

"No, I don't," said Bean, with a hint of sullen defiance. He wanted to add: "And I don't go round voting and breaking windows, either," but he was not equal to this.

"Well, I don't know--" She deliberated, adjusting one of her many puffs of gray hair, and gazing dreamily at a thread of smoke that ascended from her cigarette. She seemed to be wondering whether or not she ought to let him off this time. "Well, I don't know. It looks to me as if you were too good to be true."

She rose and tossed her cigarette out of the window. He thought he was freed, but at the door she turned suddenly upon him once more.

"What in time _have_ you done? Haven't you ever had any fun?"

But she waited for no answer.

"I knew she'd admire you," said the flapper. "Isn't she a perfectly old dear?"

"Oh, yes!" gasped Bean. "Yes, yes, yes, indeed! She is _that_!"

VII

Bean had once attended a magician's entertainment and there suffered vicariously the agony endured by one of his volunteer assistants. Suavely the entertainer begged the help of "some kind gentleman from the audience." He was insistent, exerting upon the reluctant ones the pressure of his best platform manner.

When the pause had grown embarrassing, a shamed looking man slouched forward from an aisle seat amid hearty cheers. He ascended the carpeted runway from aisle to stage, stumbled over footlights and dropped his hat. Then the magician harried him to the malicious glee of the audience. He removed playing-cards, white rabbits and articles of feminine apparel from beneath the coat of his victim. He seated him in a chair that collapsed. He gave him a box to hold and shocked him electrically. He missed his watch and discovered it in the abused man's pocket. And when the ordeal was over the recovered hat was found to contain guinea-pigs. The kind gentleman from the audience had been shown to be transcendently awkward, brainless, and to have a mania for petty thievery. With burning face and falling glance, he had stumbled back to his seat, where a lady who had before exhibited the public manner of wife to husband toward him, now pretended that he was an utter and offensive stranger.

Bean, I say, had once suffered vicariously with this altruistic dolt. His suffering now was not vicarious. For three days he endured on the raw of his own soul tortures even more ingeniously harrowing.

To be shut up for three hours a day with Breede was bad enough, but custom had a little dulled his sensitiveness to this. And he could look Breede over and write down in beautiful shorthand what he thought of him.

But the other Breedes!

Mrs. Breede, a member of one of the very oldest families in Omaha, he learned, terrified him exceedingly. She was an advanced dresser--he had to admit that--but she was no longer beautiful. She was a plucked rose that had been too long kept; the petals were rusting, crumpling at the edges. He wondered if Breede had ever wished to be wrecked on a desert island with her. She surveyed Bean through a glass-and-gold weapon with a long handle, and on the two subsequent occasions when she addressed him called him Mr. Brown. Once meeting him in the hall, she seemed to believe that he had been sent to fix the telephone.

And the flapper's taller sister of the languishing glance--how quickly had she awakened him from that golden dream of the low-lying atoll and the wrecked ship in a far sea. She _did_ flirt with "any one," no doubt about that. She adroitly revealed to Bean an unshakable conviction that he was desperately enamoured of her, and that it served him right for a presumptuous nobody. She talked to him, preened herself in his gaze, and maddened him with a manner of deadly roguishness. Then she flew to exert the same charm upon any one of the resplendent young men who were constantly riding over or tooting over in big black motor-cars. They were young men who apparently had nothing to do but "go in" for things--riding, tennis, polo, golf. To all of them she was the self-confident charmer; just the kind of a girl to make a fool of you and tell about it.

Twenty-four hours after her first assault upon him he was still wrecking the ship at the entrance to that lagoon, but now he watched the big sister go down for the third time while he placidly rescued a stoker to share his romantic isolation.

The flapper and Grandma, the Demon, were even more objectionable, and, what was worse, they alarmed him. Puzzled as to their purpose, he knew not what defence to make. He was swept on some secret and sinister current to an end he could not divine.

The flapper lay in wait for him at all hours when he might appear. Did he open a door, she lurked in the corridor; did he seek refuge in the gloom of the library, she arose to confront him from its dimmest nook; did he plan a masterly escape by a rear stairway, she burst upon him from the ambush of some exotic shrub to demand which way he had thought of going. He had never thought of a way that did not prove to have been her own. The creature was a leech! If she had only talked, he believed that he could have thrown her off. But she would not talk. She merely walked beside him insatiably. Sometimes he thought he could detect a faint anxiety in the look she kept upon him, but, mostly, it was the look of something calm, secure, ruthless. Something! It unnerved him.

It was usually probable that Grandma, the Demon, would join them, the silver cigarette case dangling at her girdle. Then was he sorely beset. They would perhaps talk about him over his head, discuss his points as if he were some new beast from the stables.

"I tell you, he's over an inch taller than I am," announced the flapper.

"U-u-mm!" replied Grandma, measuring Bean's stature with narrowed eye. "U-u-mm!"

"You show her!" commanded flapper, in a louder voice, as if she believed him deaf. She grasped his arm and whirled him about to stand with his back to hers.

"There!" said the flapper tensely, her eyes staring ahead. "There!"

"You're scrooching!" accused the Demon.

"Not a bit!--and see how square his shoulders are!" She turned to point out this grace of the animal.

"Ever take any drugs? Ever get any habits like that?" queried the Demon. Plainly Bean's confession to an unusual virtue had aroused her suspicion. He might be a drug fiend!

He faltered wretchedly, wishing Breede would send for him.

"I--well, I used to be made to take sulphur and molasses every spring ... but I never kept it up after I left home."

"Hum!" said the old lady, looking as if he could tell a lot more if he chose.

She gripped one of his biceps. He was not ashamed of these. The night and morning drill with that home exerciser had told, even though he was not yet so impressive as the machine's inventor, who, in magazine advertisements, looked down so fondly upon his own flexed arm.

"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed the Demon respectfully.

Bean thrilled at this, feeling like a primitive brute of the cave times, accustomed to subduing women by force.

After that they seemed tacitly to agree that they would pretend to show him over the "grounds." Bean hated the grounds, which were worried to the last square inch into a chilling formality, and the big glass conservatory was stifling, like an overcrowded, overheated auditorium. And he knew they were "drawing him out." They looked meaningly at each other whenever he spoke.

They questioned him about his early life, but learned only that his father had been "engaged in the express business." He was ably reticent.

Did he believe that women ought to be classed legally with drunkards, imbeciles and criminals? He did not, if you came down to that. Let them vote if they wanted to. He had other things to think about, more important. He didn't care much, either way. Voting didn't do any good.

He had taken the ideal attitude to enrage the woman suffragist. She will respect opposition. Careless indifference she cannot brook. Grandma opened upon him and battered him to a pulpy mass. Within the half hour he was supinely promising to remind her to give him a badge before he left; and there was further talk of his marching at the next parade as a member of the Men's League for Woman's Suffrage, or, at the very least, in the column of Men Sympathizers.

He wondered, wondered! Were they trying to assure themselves that he was a fit man to be in the employ of old Breede? He could imagine it of them; as soon as they thought about voting they began to interfere in a man's business. Yet this suspicion slept when he was with the flapper alone. Sometimes he was conscious of liking very much to be with her. He decided that this was because she didn't talk.

The evening of his last day came. Breede, in a burst of garrulity, had said: "Had enough this; go town to-morrow!" The flapper, and even the Demon, had seemed to be stirred by the announcement. He resolved to be more than ever on his guard. But they caught him fairly in the open.

"How do you like his hair parted that way in the middle?" demanded the flapper, with the calculating eye of one who ponders changes in a dwelling-house.

"U-u-mm!" considered the Demon gravely. "Not bad. Still, perhaps--!"

"Exactly what I was thinking!" said the flapper cordially. Then, to Bean, her tone slightly raised:

"Which way?"

"Got to get off a bunch of telegrams," lied Bean.

"Oh, all right! We'll wait for you," said the flapper. "Right there," she added, pointing to the most expensive pergola on the place.

In the dusk of an hour later he slunk stealthily down a rear stairway and made a cautious detour into the grounds. He earnestly meant to keep far from that pergola. Wait for him, would they? Well, he'd show them! Always spying on a man; _hounding_ him! What business was it of theirs whether he had habits or not ... any kind of habits?

But he was to find himself under a spell such as is said to bring the weak-willed bird to the serpent's maw. His traitorous feet dragged him toward the trap. The odour of a cigarette drew his revolted nostrils. He could hear the murmurous duet.

Talking about him! Of course! He would like to break in on them and for a little while be a certain Corsican upstart in one of his most objectionable moods. That would take them down a bit. But, instead, he became something entirely different. With the stealth of the red Indian he effaced himself against a background of well-groomed shrubbery and crept toward the murmur. At last he could hear words above the beating of his heart.

"How can you _know_?" the Demon was saying. "A child of your age?"

The flapper's tone was calm and confident as one who relates a phenomenon that has become a commonplace.

"I knew it the very first second I ever saw him--something went over me just like that--I can't tell how, but I knew."

"Well, how can you know about him?"

"Oh, him!" The words implied that the flapper had waved a deprecating hand. "Why, I know about him in just the same way; you can't tell how. It comes over you!"

The Demon: (A long-drawn) "U-u-mm!"

The flapper: "And he makes me perfectly furious sometimes, too!"

There was a stir as if they were leaving. Bean retreated a dozen feet before he breathed again. So that was their game, was it? He'd see about that!

He waited for them to emerge, but they had apparently settled to more of this high-handed talk. Then, like an icy wave to engulf him, came a name--"Tommy Hollins." It came in the Demon's voice, indistinguishable words preceding it. And in the flapper's voice came "Tommy Hollins!" gently, caressingly, it seemed. In truth, the flapper had sniffed before uttering it, and the sniff had meant good-natured contempt but Bean had lost the sniff.

Now he had it! Tommy Hollins! He identified the youth, a yellow-headed, pink-faced lout in flannels who was always riding over, and who seemed to "go in" for nearly everything. He had detected a romping intimacy between the two. So it was Tommy Hollins. At once he felt a great relief; he need worry no longer over the singular attentions of this young woman. Let Tommy Hollins worry! He could admit, now, how grave had been his alarm. And there was nothing in it. He could meet her without being afraid. He was almost ready to approach them genially and pass an hour in light conversation. He advanced a few steps with this intention, but again came the voice of the flapper replying, apparently, to some unheard admonition. It came, cold and terrible.

"I don't care. I've got the right to choose the father of my own children!"

He blushed for this language, a blush he could feel mantling his very toes. He fled from there. He saw that the moment was not for light conversation. And even as he fled he caught the Demon's prolonged "U-u-mmm!"

Yet when he left in the morning the flapper lurked for him as ever, materializing from an apparently vacant corridor. He greeted her for the first time without ulterior questioning. He thought he liked her pretty well now. And she was undeniably good to look at in the white of her tennis costume; the hair, like Nap's spots in its golden brown, was filleted with a scarlet ribbon, and her eyes shone from her freshened face with an unwonted sparkle--decision, certitude--what was it? He deemed that he knew.

"Tommy Hollins coming to play," she vouchsafed in explanation of the racquet she carried. "Are you glad to go?"